.::REALITYRECALL::.

Google Buzz, the company’s much maligned foray into social networking that was about as popular as genital herpes, is dying. Oh, you thought it was already dead? Not yet. But that’s probably why Google is killing it. More »

Mobile developer Spacetime Studios has a hit on its hands with Star Legends, the sci-fi-based follow-up to its MMO Pocket Legends. That game has a community of better than 3 million fans, and Star Legends seems to be growing just as fast as its free-to-play mobile predecessor.

Now, players itching for a new (slightly smaller scale) MMO fix who aren’t really into the whole mobile gaming scene will get access to Star Legends for the first time. The game is coming as a native client to Google Chrome, the search company’s free web browser, where players will be able to team up with other players on PC, Mac, Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS. It’ll also be the first 3-D game on the Chrome platform. It’s not available yet, but when it is, you can get it from the Chrome Web App Store.

Star Legends isn’t as robust an MMO as some of the other free-to-play clients out there, but that might be to its credit. It’s totally pick-up-and-play-able, which is nice, and the casual nature makes it fun to spend some time with but not necessarily as insanely time-consuming as, say, World of Warcraft.

The marketing geniuses at General Motors launched this campaign this week. It’s aimed at convincing college kids already paying exorbitant tuition and living well beyond their means that they can go another $20k in debt and somehow pay the monthly insurance on a sweet new car. You’ll recognize the humiliated cyclist riding an uncool bike from the 80s and a similarly dull helmet because that’s you and me a few years back.

What I adore about this campaign is its boldness. GM makes garbage cars. And you know what? None of us bought them, and then they took our money anyway in the form of a bailout. Here are the fruits of that cash. Luckily the folks at Giant Bicycles have a limber ad department and a sense of humor. They dropped the below great ad the next day. Ahh, it’s nice to have a sense of humor, and it resulted in GM yanking the ads. Too bad about all that money wasted on cars.

Android: Samsung’s alternative texting, multimedia messaging, and chat app is now available in the Android Market. Similar to Apple’s iMessage and BlackBerry’s BBM service, ChatON could possibly help you save on messaging fees—once Samsung starts sending verification codes, that is. More »

We present the Throwable Panoramic Ball Camera which captures a full spherical panorama when thrown into the air. At the peak of its flight, which is determined using an accelerometer, a full panoramic image is captured by 36 mobile phone camera modules.

[Via @Johl; Images courtesy of Jonas Pfeil, CC]

(Credit: CERN)

The relativistic motion of clocks on board GPS satellites exactly accounts for the superluminal effect in the OPERA experiment, says  physicist Ronald van Elburg at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, The Physics arXiv Blog reports.

“From the perspective of the clock, the detector is moving towards the source and consequently the distance travelled by the particles as observed from the clock is shorter,” says van Elburg. By this he means shorter than the distance measured in the reference frame on the ground. The OPERA team overlooks this because it assumes the clocks are on the ground not in orbit.

Van Elburg calculates that it should cause the neutrinos to arrive 32 nanoseconds early. But this must be doubled because the same error occurs at each end of the experiment. So the total correction is 64 nanoseconds, almost exactly what the OPERA team observed.

Ref.: Ronald A.J. van Elburg, Times Of Flight Between A Source And A Detector Observed From A GPS Satellite, arxiv.org/abs/1110.2685:

Rene Bourque scored twice and Miikka Kiprusoff got the Flames’ all-time wins record as Calgary spoiled the Montreal Canadiens’ home opener with a 4-1 victory on Thursday night.

Regina will host the 2013 Grey Cup the Saskatchewan Roughriders announced late Thursday afternoon just ahead of a media event in Regina where CFL commissioner Mark Cohon confirmed the news.

Update: During the company’s earnings call, CEO Larry Page confirmed that there’s now 190 million Android phones activated around the world, and 200 million users of the Chrome web browser (although it’s not clear how many of those are active users). Page also took a moment to post his remarks to Google+ during the call.

Continue reading Google announces Q3 earnings: $9.72 billion in revenue, $2.73 billion net income, 40 million Google+ users

Google announces Q3 earnings: $9.72 billion in revenue, $2.73 billion net income, 40 million Google+ users originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 13 Oct 2011 16:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Google  | Email this | Comments

Samsung confirms Ice Cream Sandwich event on October 19 originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 13 Oct 2011 15:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

Would you watch a Seth MacFarlane Star Trek series? Depends his latest Star Trek Family Guy specials have been both funny and horribly insulting. But MacFarlane wants to make it happen, and he just might make it work. More »

Android users with front-facing cameras looking to make video calls from their phones have a lot of great options, but we found that Skype is the most mature and feature-rich video chat application for the job.

Continue reading Duke Nukem 3D is coming to Android, old rope shares soar

Duke Nukem 3D is coming to Android, old rope shares soar originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 13 Oct 2011 12:08:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Joystiq  |  PRNewswire  | Email this | Comments

You’re now one step closer to experiencing and interacting with a 3D mirror of the real world within your browser with Google MapsGL. Google MapsGL takes Google Maps and harnesses the power of Web Graphics Library (WebGL) to create far richer visuals and animations.

WebGL is a new technology that brings hardware-accelerated 3D graphics to the browser without additional installed software. With WebGL your maps experience is much better with 3D buildings, smoother transitions between imagery and the ability to instantly “swoop” into Street View without a plugin.

Starting today, if you’re using supported browsers (such as Chrome 14+ or Firefox Beta) with compatible video cards, you can opt in to the early beta release. Visit maps.google.com and click “Try it now,” or visit maps.google.com/gl to learn more.

We’ve been using WebGL to create experiences like our Chrome experiments “3 Dreams of Black” and “All is Not Lost,” which happen right in the browser. Previously, such sophisticated 3D graphics have only been possible on traditional desktop applications and have required manual installation. WebGL ushers in a whole new generation of graphics on the web, and with that, we can begin to redefine the expectations of an online map.

Check out Chrome Experiments WebGL for more WebGL-powered applications, and opt in to Google MapsGL to begin using the next generation of mapping today.

Posted by Brian McClendon, VP of Google Maps and Earth